Blind Ambition Ceballos Wins Dunk Title - Blindfolded.

NBA

ORLANDO -- The state of the NBA`s Slam-Dunk Championship has come to this -- Saturday`s winner was able to capture the event blindfolded.

Ending a dull contest with a flourish, Phoenix Suns forward Cedric Ceballos donned a blindfold and completed the competition at Orlando Arena with a blind, straight-on jam.

Ceballos scored the event`s only perfect 50 by defying the rules and employing a prop.

At that point, no one in the league seemed to mind.

``The blindfold came to me in Los Angeles, when Magic Johnson was shooting jumpers with his eyes closed,`` Ceballos said. ``I had been practicing for about a month now. Fortunately, that was the best one.``

The competition was so lopsided that Ceballos had clinched the title before his final attempt, after Hornets forward Larry Johnson missed his first four attempts in the finals. Ceballos outscored Johnson 97.2-66 in the finals.

Johnson was so discouraged that he did not watch Ceballos` final attempt.

``Nope,`` Johnson said, ``didn`t see it.``

Then again, neither did Ceballos, who awoke a sleepy crowd as he donned the blindfold with a flourish. He said he had practiced the dunk with the Suns` mascot, the Gorilla.

``I think the worst one was when I was practicing with the media around and I ran into the cameras,`` the 6-foot-6 second-year forward. ``The first time I tried it, I dunked nothing but air.``

Each dunk was rated on a 1-to-10 basis by five judges. Two-dunk totals determined the scores in the first round and semifinals. The two finalists were allowed to count two of three dunks in the championship segment.

Hometown hero Nick Anderson of the Magic and Knicks guard John Starks were eliminated in the semifinals with two-dunk scores below 90 points. Ironically, Johnson had outscored Ceballos 98-90.4 in the semifinals.

The first-round scores were particularly low. Starks, Anderson and Ceballos all advanced to the semifinals with two-dunk totals below 90 points. Last year, all four semifinalists scored at least 90.8 points in the first round. In fact, since 1988, only one player (Philadelphia`s Shelton Jones in 1989) had advanced to the semifinals with a first-round total of fewer than 90 points.

Part of the problem was a low-grade field. In fact, when Cavaliers rookie Terrell Brandon withdrew from the competition last week because of an injury, the league went with its first seven-player field since the event began in 1984.

Sonics forward Shawn Kemp, the favorite after a runner-up finish last year in Charlotte, missed two dunks in the first round (competitors were allowed only one replacement) and effectively fouled out of the opening round. Hawks rookie guard Stacey Augmon met a similar fate.